Old Complete Monster cleanup thread
Welcome to the Complete Monster proposal thread! This is the thread where new Complete Monster examples are vetted, approved, and written up. If you're looking for the general cleanup thread (for cuts, rewrites, expansions, and the like), please go here
Important: Before suggesting any new examples, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List; if you have any questions, the odds are high they are answered there. Additionally, please check here for the earliest date a work can be discussed (usually two weeks from the U.S. release date) and whether the work has already been reserved by another user.
Here is how the process works:
- If you have a candidate to propose, you can simply come right in and propose them! If the character's run is brief, such as a single issue of a comic book, then a simple summary of their actions and any potential redeeming qualities will be enough; for longer-running candidates, an effortpost (EP) might be helpful for organizing the proposal. An EP is not outright required, but please be mindful that if a post becomes too clunky and unorganized, it can be very hard for other people to follow.
- After the proposal, there will be a 72-hour discussion and voting period, where people may ask questions and vote on the candidate. The number of upvotes must outnumber the downvotes by at least five for the character to be considered "approved".
- Three days after the proposal has been made, if the character has been approved, you may post the writeup (the text to be posted on the trope page itself) on the thread and send it to the drafts page. Your candidate will soon be added to the CM subpage. If the work has a page, you should add your candidate to the relevant YMMV page. Voila! It's that simple!
Outside of this process, we do have a few ground rules:
- To keep the thread moving at a reasonable pace, there are some restrictions on when a proposal can be made. There should only be a maximum of four EPs posted both per page and per hour to ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle; additionally, each individual troper should only be proposing or writing up characters from a maximum of three works at a time (from initial proposals to end of their voting period). If your proposal would fall outside of either of these guidelines, we'd like to ask you to please wait until they would fit within; feel free to type them up on an outside document, and then when the time comes, you can just copy, paste, and post!
- No plagiarism of any kind. This is a very serious matter site-wide, as the website could get in actual legal trouble over this; as a result, this can very quickly lead to mod intervention. This can take many different forms:
- Direct plagiarism, i.e. wholesale copying. This is not only the easiest to find, but is also the most likely to warrant quick moderator intervention. To be clear, quoting in some places is perfectly acceptable, but it has to be very clear you're quoting from something else and it cannot be anything longer than a sentence or two - if you're quoting an entire work summary from Wikipedia, no one is going to believe you've actually consumed the work, so even if you cite your source, your candidate will be downvoted anyway.
- Self-plagiarism. Even if you can prove that you wrote the same text in both places, the site itself can't contain any of the duplicated text. If you already wrote something once before, it's not too hard to write it a second time.
- Using another site's work as a template for a proposal. Just because you don't copy and paste something directly doesn't mean it's any harder to detect if you're basing parts or all of your proposal on text someone else wrote. To be clear, this doesn't violate site rules and won't lead to mod intervention, but just like if you directly plagiarize, no one will believe you've consumed the work if you're clearly basing your proposal on something else. This thread largely operates on the honor system, and tweaking someone else's work to pass it off as your own is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.
- Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").
- If you are the first person to downvote a candidate, please provide an explanation of why when you do so. We're here for discussions above all, and a hit-and-run downvote doesn't facilitate anything.
- If a work is already reserved by another user, please don't comment on the work or any potential characters worth discussion before the discussion date. We know how exciting it is when a work has a keeper that you're waiting to talk about, but it's not fair to the person who reserved the work who is just as excited to lead the discussion to see the discussion getting spoiled before they get to do it. On the other hand, if the reservation only has one name attached, shoot them a PM - they may be down for a collaboration, which will get you in on the fun as well!
- Please keep the thread on-topic. While discussing the trope is fun and we encourage people to enjoy it, questions like "who's your favorite CM" are off-topic and can lead to thumps. That's the kind of question to take to people's PMs if they're willing. Similarly, while we encourage friendliness and familiarity with other users, posts should always have some kind of thread-relevant purpose; for instance, if you want to wish someone a happy birthday, feel free to, but if it's the only thing in the post, it's off-topic and needs something else alongside it. Again, though, while we strive for a friendly atmosphere, this is not Facebook; life updates are fun, but unless they have some kind of impact on your thread participation, please do not bring it here - we have Yack Fest for that.
- Please refrain from asking anything along the lines of "How Did We Miss This One?" In almost every case, the answer is simply "No one thought about it before". This Is a Wiki where everyone has different interests, and the fact that people missed a particular candidate, even one that seems like a textbook example of a trope or a character who is particularly iconic in pop culture, means absolutely nothing. The question is disruptive, has a simple and consistent answer, and provides nothing to any discussion.
- If you are suspended from parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
- For users who are suspended from editing the wiki, you still have full access to this thread. You can propose candidates and write them up with no issues whatsoever; while you will have to ask someone else to post the entry to the relevant pages once it is done, all write-ups are considered thread-approved - as in, done by consensus - and thus doing so does not violate any rules regarding meatpuppeting.
- If you are suspended from the forums, your participation is limited but not impossible. It is still possible for a forum-suspended user to assist in creating the write-up for a character who has already been approved; as previously mentioned, write-ups are inherently considered a consensus-based edit and thus not tied to any one particular user. However, you can not assist in the proposal of a character; as a proposal is based around the forum rather than the wiki, doing so with a forum suspension qualifies as meatpuppeting.
- Please keep all discussions "in-house".
- What other wikis use for CM equivalents is irrelevant here.
- Please be wary of using other wikis, Fandom or otherwise, as sources of information. They are just as fallible as a site like Wikipedia in regards to accuracy because they can be edited by any user, just as this site can.
- Do not attempt to force a communication with an author in an attempt to gather evidence or settle a debate; besides the fact that this is a YMMV trope and thus author intent has variable weight depending on the circumstance, doing so may cross the line into drama exportation, which is prohibited site-wide.
If you would like to use an EP for your candidate, here's the general format. This format does not have to be followed exactly, but these are the main topics that need to be covered:
What is the work?
This is a brief summary of the work you're going to discuss. We don't need a full plot summary here, just however much we need to understand going into the discussion — it can even be as simple as quoting the summary on the work's page.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
This is essentially the character's biography — who they are, their story, the crimes they commit, and, preferably (though not required), what happens to the candidate at the end. It does not have to include every single thing they ever do — for some villains, we'd be here all day if that was the case — but it should include the highlights of their journey.
Any redeeming qualities? Freudian Excuse?
This is where any potential redeeming characteristics or tragic backstory should be discussed. Do they have a tragic past? Do they show that Even Evil Has Standards or Even Evil Has Loved Ones? Maybe a Pet the Dog moment or two? This is where these should be discussed in full. Not every potential redeeming moment is a clear-cut disqualifier, but we should hear of any potential issues to ensure the character is discussed in full.
Are they bad enough?
A Complete Monster has to be particularly vile by the standard of the work they appear in. Therefore, you should look at what the character does compared to similar characters in the same work. This takes into account things like:
- Their resource level (a human Serial Killer can't stand up to an alien Omnicidal Maniac, but they can be bad by the standard of other human serial killers)
- The amount of time they have to work with (such as a one-shot character versus long-running antagonists)
- The quantity vs. quality of their crimes compared to others (someone with a lower victim count but far more visceral and personal crimes could be considered as equally bad overall as someone with a higher body count but less horror involved)
Essentially, this section is an analysis of the kinds of villainy shown in the work and an explanation of why this particular character's villainy stands out within it.
Final verdict?
This is where you post your final conclusion on the character in question. You can continue elaborating on your reasons or even just say a simple "yes" or "no"; at this point, we've heard everything we need to hear.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This thread tackles very serious and dark matters on a daily basis. We will be discussing things like murder, rape, torture, human trafficking, crimes against children, and in particularly dark cases, several of these issues at the same time. We keep a lighthearted air, but all candidates carry the general assumption that these are awful individuals committing disgusting crimes. We ask that if you participate, you do so with the requisite seriousness such dark topics require; exclamations of how gross something is, whether serious or sarcastic, are disrespectful to the topics at hand, and if you cannot handle such topics, please do not participate.
And that's everything you need to know. Welcome to the thread!
Edited by Twiddler on Jan 17th 2024 at 5:42:49 AM
Astolfo my Man
Forget it and at the same time, I don't wanna talk about that idiotic move I made.
Edited by Echidna on Apr 15th 2023 at 1:09:02 PM
I don't want to brag or anything but when it comes to being the worst, I'm always at the top!
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Bryce I think I'm fine with since he's also a Serial Killer.
EDIT: Oh, wait, there's the other dude who would hurt an infant. Eh, I could go either way on Bryce.
Edited by ACW on Apr 3rd 2023 at 7:33:30 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Was checking these subpages and noticed Marlo Stanfield hadn't been voted on and having recently just viewed The Wire, I feel like it's overdue.
- What is the work**:
HBO's The Wire
- Who is he and what does he do**
Introduced as an up-and-coming drug lord, Marlo runs his territory with ruthlessness and unrelenting brutality. Even going as far as murdering and assaulting members of Avon Barksdale's crew. When Stringer Bell, the Number Two in the Barksdale organization, approached him with an offer to join the Co-op, a coalition of drug lords who teamed up to share their product to increase their profit and end the violence between their factions to deter police attention, Marlo refuses, taking the offer as a sign of weakness and orders his right hand man Chris Partlow to "tool up". Marlo and the Barksdale wage a bloody gang war with each other, which claims many lives, until Marlo eventually ends up in control of West Baltimore's best territory after a power struggle between Avon and Stringer leaves Stringer dead and Avon in prison. Among Marlo's crimes are brutally murdering Devonn (a young woman Avon had sent to spy on Marlo), having his lieutenants torture, and eventually kill, Blind Butchie to get at his friend Omar Little after Omar robbed a shipment of Marlo's Heroin, having Junebug and his family killed because there was hearsay Junebug called Marlo a "dick-sucker," having an adolescent drug dealer of his crew little Kevin killed under suspicion of him having talked to the police despite Kevin never having done so, this infuriates another dealer in his organization Bodie Broadus so much that it causes him to agree to work with the Major Crimes Unit to stop Marlo, but when one of Marlo's soldiers sees Bodie talk to Officer James Mc Nulty, Marlo quickly orders a hit on Bodie having him killed. He also orders Snoop to kill his fourteen-year-old soldier, Michael on the suspicion the kid talked to the cops, and murdering his mentor, Proposition Joe, when he learns everything he could from him. Marlo then usurps Joe's drug connections and disbands the Co-op, becoming the biggest drug kingpin in Baltimore. By far the most horrifying reveal about Marlo is the discovery of his tombs, where it's revealed that he's been having his soldiers, Chris and Snoop, murder people then preserve their bodies with quicklime and seal them up in vacant houses. Over twenty people were found in this manner, and they weren't just rival criminals either. One of his most pointlessly cruel acts was after he deliberately egged on a security guard in a convenience store by stealing something in front of him. When the guard caught up with Marlo, he told him he had a family to support, and basically asked for nothing other than to be treated like a human being. Marlo responded by having him killed for "talking back" and hiding his body with the others. Towards the end of the series Marlo and his crew are taken down by the MCU after receiving the Greeks 1st shipment but due to some police misconduct done by Mc Nulty and Lester, the case is botched and the charges are dropped. Realizing even with being released, the police are closing in on him he decides to retire from the life selling his position for 5 million. In the last episode, his lawyer who represented him brings him to a party of business people to where Marlo is supposed to make connections and start an honest life for himself, but realizing that he doesn't fit in with the crowd he loses interest and leaves the party. Shortly afterwards, he comes across 2 corner dealers who are talking about the recently deceased Omar Little. Marlo confronts them and a conflict ensues where they fail to shoot Marlo and he takes their corner, proving he loves the violence and chaos of the drug game too much to do anything else in life.
- Freudian Excuse or Mitigating Factors**
Marlo's backstory is largely unknown. According to the police he has killed before in a similar way he killed Devonne. He never shows any remorse or regret for any of his actions. Even when the idea of leaving the drug game behind isn't out of any guilt or distaste for the lifestyle but because he realizes he can't go any further. He's affable to Chris and Snoop but it's hard to say he has any care for them outside of their use to him. He doesn't seem at all troubled by Snoop's death or Chris' imprisonment even going off on the latter after he tries to calm him down after their arrest. He has no problem killing anyone as soon as he sees as any kind of threat even if they are his allies such as Little Kevin, Bodie and Michael. Co creator Ed Burns even describes Marlo as a "pure psychopath" who has been crafted and warped by the worst aspects of Baltimore
- Heinous Standard**
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Copard, yes to Ramsay.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Astolfo my Man
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
As STARCRUSHER said he already got an EP in case you are unaware. Sorry, that happened.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Copard, Ramsay
x4 JW but which subpages are you referring to? Because Marlo's been listed on the YMMV and the Main TV page under W.
The Draftsman of Doom
The Emperor of Evil!
to Ramsay and Copard.
You know what, I'll go switch to a no on Trout personally, not enough oomph on on him in my opinion.
Edited by Powermaster201 on Apr 3rd 2023 at 8:54:56 AM
Okay this guy is from DC and I'm not entirely certain he keeps, but he's definitely detestable so I figured he'd be worth a try.
What's the work?
Huntress, a 2012 miniseries covering Earth 2 Helena Kyle in Prime Earth. In this case she goes on an adventure in Italy trying to help Middle Eastern refugees being trafficked into sexual slavery, as well as a dictator in exile and his degenerate of a son. The Dictator I'm pretty sure doesn't count; he's a vile piece of work but is implied to genuinely love his sons, who return the affection. Their ACCOMPLICE, however, is a different story.
Who is he? What has he done?
Moretti, a wealthy gang lord with his fingers in every illicit dealing in Naples Italy..... with his most prominent areas being the trafficking of both North African Woman (the miniseries was made when the Arab Spring was still ongoing) and guns. Helena arrives in Naples and disrupts one shipment, rescuing the girls from the container and blowing the weapons sky high. Moretti (who is constantly being waited on by North African Girls who he's forced to be servants) is angry about the loss of the guns (not so much about the women since there are a lot more coming in), and shoots one of his men Davide simply because Davide was the one who gave him the news (maintaining a calm demeanor the entire time). He also takes the time to sample the wares as it were
Moretti displays his Bad Boss tendencies yet again when some of his men are dispatched after Helena in a hotel and Helena beats the crap out of them. Moretti's second in command Guiseppe shoots all of them and given what we hear him say next issue it's heavily implied that this is standard operating procedure for Moretti. He also makes arrangements for the Chairman of Kufra (a dictator of a North African Country, as well as Moretti's source of North African Women) to be granted refuge in Italy (and offering to share some of his captives with the dictator's son so he can "relax").
Eventually Helena attacks Moretti's yacht, incapacitating most of the guards but still getting into a fight. When she gets injured an overconfident Moretti comes on deck, ordering his men to chop her up and feed her to the fish. Unfortunately, Helena is still able to overcome his men despite the injury, and while Moretti quivers tells the girls that she's leaving him to them (and that she's had her friends call the cops). Helena leaves as the police approach, with it being left unclear whether Moretti was killed or not.
Redeeming Qualities?
The only thing that comes close is that he seems to have something of a friendship with Ibn Hassan (the Chairman's son) and even that's more due to their corruption and mutual depravity against women. Otherwise he's got jack. In addition to being a gun runner and sex trafficker he's also an abusive rapist. Another comment he makes when he has trouble remembering a girl's name ("No matter, they'll give you a name that's easier to remember when we turn you out") implies he may actually be casually racist. Finally, he is an EXTREMELY Bad Boss (killing one guy just for giving him bad news, and whether or not he ordered Guiseppe to kill the goons in the hotel for failing he's definitely not broken up about it).
Heinous Factor?
This is the tricky factor. I'm not sure how common sexual slavery and trafficking is in DC, but Moretti is fairly prolific in that score. He's also very heavily inferred to rape some of the women he traffics (the girls with him are clearly not consenting or in a position to do so, and once they have him at their mercy it's pretty heavily implied they beat him to death).
The other problem is the other antagonists in the miniseries also match him in things like the sexual sadism but have clear redeeming qualities (they genuinely care for each other). If it were just Moretti I'd be far more confident.
Does he count?
I think the case can be made when you combine the sexual sadism, bad boss tendencies and you know being a trafficker but I'll leave it up to the thread.
to Copard, Ramsay, and Moretti
We already approved Marlo a while back
Edited by G-Editor on Apr 3rd 2023 at 9:10:24 AM
Sex slavery tends to be an automatic line-crosser in most settings, DC included. Yes to Moretti.
Edited by Scraggle on Apr 3rd 2023 at 7:14:58 AM
Astolfo my Man
Moretti
It should be noted that the Chairman of Kufra is ALSO a sexual sadist (raping and murdering one woman) but as mentioned before cares for his son and shows genuine trust to his men. Moretti doesn't kill women but IS a Bad Boss who'll kill people for minor fuckups
Edited by LordYAM on Apr 3rd 2023 at 6:16:08 AM
Is he making a business out of it? Doesn't sound like one other rapist will throw Moretti off.
Edited by Scraggle on Apr 3rd 2023 at 7:18:59 AM
What we see implies that Moretti has forced himself upon multiple women; he's constantly surrounded by North African Women and the implications are VERY clear that he's forced all of them into sex.
Yep, I have no issue with Moretti then. Like, at all. Easy yes.
Woagh
The Draftsman of Doom
Yes to Copard, Ramsay, and Moretti.
No to Julio, Claudia, and Trout.
Here is my Steve Jenkins write-up:
- Lois Lane Young Adult Trilogy by Gwenda Bond: Steve Jenkins is the CEO of a corporation called Advanced Research Labs. Jenkins uses mind-control technology hidden in video game headsets to mind-control, several teenagers, into becoming a Hive Mind called the Warheads. Jenkins wants to sell the Warheads to the US military so that they direct US soldiers on the battlefield, not caring that the Warheads are forcibly assimilating other teenagers into their collective. After Lois Lane frees the Warheads from the Hive Mind and reveals Jenkins's scheme to the public, he loses his company but stays out of jail. Later Jenkins lures several homeless teenagers into his service by giving them food and shelter. He then has a scientist named Dabney Donovan experiment on them in order to give them superpowers. Jenkins plans to sell these super-powered teenagers to the US military. Jenkins captures Lois and orders Donovan to experiment on her so that she will be forced to join his team, in order to force her father, General Sam Lane, into letting his team into the military. When Lois escapes and reveals Jenkins's new scheme to the public, he forces his superpowered teenage team to defend him from the authorities at all costs, not caring if they or civilians get harmed in the process.
Edited by Overlord on Apr 3rd 2023 at 6:57:00 AM
Ultimate Moral Compass
Moretti
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
Giving a very weak to Trout.
Astolfo my Man
the image looks good for Voltron in my eyes. But I feel the last one showcases the brutality of the actions
Edited by Echidna on Apr 3rd 2023 at 10:43:19 AM
I don't want to brag or anything but when it comes to being the worst, I'm always at the top!
Yeah, EPs can be retracted, but the strike feature is much preferred as opposed to deletion. It ensures a continuity on the thread and gives context to the votes and discussion being had on any one candidate.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!